Recommendations

Chuwi Brand Epic Sale

Follow Us

2 Years, 2 dead Chuwi Hi13

So overall my first adventure into buying PC equipment direct from China has been mixed. Even though the performance only a little underwhelming for the very competitive price each time I have seen my products just decide to quit without any reason/rationale.

My first one due to the rampant issues the community was having with chargers and the usb 3.0 c ports I got on that bandwagon for the longest time figuring that was the issue. After having fingers pointed back and forth between Chuwi and the retailer I attempted an RMA with the retailer which didn't go well (the device should have shipped parcel straight to Hong Kong, instead it shipped to Shanghai and set for 6 months in a "fee" limbo (documents listed it as goods purchased in China and RMA, but customs still wanted a payment from the retailer before they would ship it to them which they refused). I ended up bargaining over another 3-4 months until they gave me enough in store credit and discounts to roughly be out another $150 for a new one to be shipped to me.

My second Hi13 upon receipt I checked and worked with it on and off for the following months periodically, not using it as a daily driver (instead using an older BMC Dell B-stock that is a couple years old). Recently I decided to give it some more attention and have been exclusively using it as an e-book and news reader. It only took 3 weeks of using this one each day for it to now mysteriously turn off about 1 hour ago and refuse to turn back on.

Since I complained enough with the USPS and Chinese customs I was able to receive back my original unit without having to pay anything and have given it a pretty solid tear down and tested its internals. I was able to rule out that it had anything to do with a bad usb port or any damaged internals whatsoever. After a lot of staring at the board I was able to figure out where I needed to directly wire a diagnostics module and was able to power it on (battery immediately started charging again). Now without Chuwi's private key I really cannot get much valid info from the firmware, but I can tell by the hashes that it is refusing to power on/boot normally due to corruption. I not sure when, but when I can make time I will probably tear down my newer one too and see if I see the same sort of results where it looks like the firmware has corrupted itself.

All in all my experience has had moments of pleasantness followed by numerous learning experiences and resulting in mild disappointment and a lack of about $350-400 USD in my wallet over two years. If I was offered to do it again I would probably decline. Overall the company does not have enough international support outside of the community itself when they seriously need regional centers globally (full logistics, not just tech support via 1 person's email). The only salvageable items I have is if I decide to one day use the touchscreens as reverse engineered magic mirrors attached to SoC.